On Friday, July 24, 2015 U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ruled on a motion to enforce a settlement of class action that the Obama Administration’s practice of detaining immigrant families violates the 1997 settlement in Flores v. Meese.
Beginning in the summer of 2014, in response to a “surge” of Central Americans arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) adopted a blanket policy to detain all female-headed families, including children, in secure, unlicensed facilities for the duration of the proceedings that determine whether they are entitled to remain in the United States. Since June, ICE has begun detaining all Central American families without the possibility of release on bond, recognizance, supervision or parole if it believes that those families arrived in the United States as part of the ‘surge’ of unauthorized entrants—mostly children—that purportedly began in the summer of 2014.
Plaintiffs challenged the following policies and practices: (1) ICE’s no-release policy, which Plaintiffs argued breaches the Agreement’s requirements that Defendants must minimize the detention of children and must consider releasing class members to available custodians in the order of preference specified in the Agreement; (2) ICE’s practice of confining children in secure, unlicensed facilities; and (3) ICE’s practice of exposing children in Border Patrol custody to “harsh, substandard” conditions and treatment.
Specifically, the Settlement provisions require ICE (1) to “release a minor from its custody without unnecessary delay” to a parent, a legal guardian, or other qualified adult custodian, except where the detention of the minor is required “either to secure his or her timely appearance before the INS or the immigration court, or to ensure the minor’s safety or that of others”; and (2) “upon taking a minor into custody to make and record prompt and continuous efforts on its part toward family reunification and the release of the minor. Plaintiffs contended ICE, by making no effort to locate custodians for minors who are apprehended with their mothers and by refusing to release these minors even when a qualified custodian is available, have not only breached the Agreement but also have unilaterally revised it to create an additional exception to release—for minors who have been apprehended as part of a female-headed family. The Agreement encompasses all minors who are in custody, without qualification as to whether they are accompanied or unaccompanied.
The Judge ordered: the Defendants to show cause why the following
remedies should not be implemented within 90 days:.
1 Defendants, upon taking an accompanied class member into custody, shall make and record prompt and continuous efforts toward family reunification and the release of the minor.
2. Defendants shall release class members without unnecessary delay in first order of preference to a parent, including a parent who either was apprehended with a class member or presented herself or himself with a class member. Class members not released must be processed in accordance with the Agreement.
3. Accompanied class members shall not be detained by Defendants in unlicensed or secure facilities that do not meet the requirements of Paragraph 6 of the Settlement, or in appropriate cases, as set forth in the Agreement, in facilities that do not meet the requirements of Paragraphs 12A, 21, and 23. Defendants shall not selectively apply the “influx” provision of Paragraph 12C of the Agreement to house class members apprehended with a parent in facilities that do not comply with the Agreement.
4. A class member’s accompanying parent shall be released with the class member in a non-discriminatory manner in accordance with applicable laws and regulations unless after an individualized custody determination the parent is determined to pose a significant flight risk, or a threat to others or the national security, and the flight risk or threat cannot be mitigated by an appropriate bond or conditions of release.
5. In consultation with Plaintiffs, Defendants shall propose standards, and procedures for monitoring compliance with such standards, for detaining class members in facilities that are safe and sanitary, consistent with concern for the particular vulnerability of minors, and consistent with Paragraph 12 of the Agreement, including access to adequate drinking water and food, toilets and sinks, medical assistance if the minor is in need of emergency services, temperature control, ventilation, adequate supervision to protect minors from others, and contact with family members who were arrested with the minor.
The Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice in the Capital Region urge the Obama administration to embrace the court’s ruling and abide by it.